The Feeling is Mutual
by Vixen Argentum
Summary: Nobody is quite sure what the feeling is between the 2nd and 12th squad captains. However, they do know that the feeling is mutual. Pairing is Mayuri x Soifon. Past UraMayu and YoruSoi, current UraYoru. Warning: blood, implicitly described acts. R


**Title: ** The Feeling is Mutual**  
Author**: Russanya (VixenofArgentum in other places)**  
Pair:** Mayuri x Soifon**--don't like, don't read  
(Not So) Hidden pairs:** Past Yoruichi x Soifon and Urahara x Mayuri. Implied Urahara x Yoruichi.**  
Warnings:** some blood--but nothing too extravagant, dark**  
Genre:** Angst**  
Rating:** R—nothing is really explicit, though there _is_ sex**  
Spoilers:** Pendulum Arc, but minor

Happy early Halloween?

AN: I sat down in my Medical Genetics class this morning and began to take notes. But, when I looked down, I didn't have notes at all—I had this instead. Holy Jesus! And I'm the biggest Urahara x Mayuri fangirl there is…so needless to say I was a bit surprised.

Moving along then...

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She hated him.

She hated the way the scars cut through his back. A few of them, she was sure he had carved into his own flesh. Still more, she knew that some of the silvered pink trails had been cut by his old captain. They were gifts given with the prowess of a surgeon's knife, things that he secretly treasured. Which scars were which, she could not say, nor did she wish to know. She did know the origin of the ones that crossed like cat scratches in the space between his shoulder blades. Soifon had put them there, watching his blood well up and glint pearlescently in the light of the moon. He had licked the remnants from the tips of her fingers, sucking every last morsel of iron from her skin and then smiled before moving his tongue somewhere else. By the way, did she mention that she hated that smile?

He hated her, too.

Her attitude was absolutely aggravating. Even if she _was_ trained in the art of subterfuge, nothing hid her raw, bare-wire-angry screams. In Mayuri's mind, Soifon was everything that a woman should never be. He couldn't stand the black halter of her special forces uniform that was so hard to untie. Usually, he would just rip the seams, and then the cloth would fall like a sigh around her ankles. Her body was clean lined and simple underneath. She slapped him any time he offered to make her any physical enhancements, which he now suggested upon less and less. The uniform reminded Mayuri of another, a catlike woman towards whom he was ambivalent—but then his mind would wander elsewhere. It conjured the image of a deceptive blond man to which his ambivalence would be a lie. For completely different reasons, just as Soifon did, he hated that man too.

She hated the ice of his lab table as it pressed into her back. Stainless steel sapped away all of her heat; the only sources of warmth were the burning points of contact between them, one hand holding her down, his breath at the hollow of her neck, and another hand applying something wet that was enhancing her sensations with each flick, flick, flick. She pulled him closer, herself down on him harder, and wrapped her legs behind his hips, squeezing with all of her strength to escape the metal at her back. He wasn't strong physically, but she was so small that it didn't even matter. When he threw her around, she quite liked it. She always hit back and retaliated hard. He never minded when he got a black eye or a broken nose. Rarely did anyone ever see his real face. Even without the paint, nobody would believe any of the stories.

He hated her bedroom window. She had given him a route unpatrolled by her ninjas, as nobody was permitted to learn about these liaisons under penalty of death. The thorns below caught on his skin, and the leaves of the tree stuck to his clothes and hair. Occasionally, his robes would get snagged on the windowsill. Mayuri would be more annoyed, but Akon never asked questions about why he continuously had to fix the tears that kept appearing. His appearance was his most prized possession, but yet again, here he was. Soifon always made a point of messing up and tearing at his perfect blue hair, destroying his masks, and smearing the meticulously drawn paint on his face, hands and neck. He was too proud to go without it, and she suspected he craved the violation.

How long Mayuri had hidden in the shadows, sneaking through the night to see her like this, he did not know. As with most things that were not important to him, abandoned experiments and shattered dreams, he had forgotten the specifics entirely. Soifon alone remembered it clearly. It is so easy to hold grudges against the world when one lacks the ability to forget. The pain of being left had consumed Soifon and her anger mounted against the only other one who was left behind. After hurling insults and desperate accusations, a search for blame became a search for second hand sensations of second hand memories. She knew because had found him with an incriminating blond gigai. She's rather cut out her tongue than ask him to recreate _her_. She truly hated him because she was jealous that she couldn't do the same thing herself. Likewise, he hated her because of what she now knew; she knew his heart, or rather that he actually _had_ one.

Both were promoted to captaincy on the very same day; neither one was a favorite by any means, but they were the undisputed best, the handpicked, the chosen children, the only hope that the Seireitei had. To the outside observer, their connection was almost undetectable. The only thing visible in both was the mark of a mentor, now long gone—her frozen heart and his bankrupt soul. The Captains hated to draw similarities between them, but the strings still crossed in ways that were far too difficult to name. They watered it down to a simple animosity or rivalry that flowed freely between them. On the outside looking in, nobody realized that both players in the game preferred much, much stronger words.

Regardless of the point of view, all agree that one thing is certain. Between the 2nd and 12th squad captains there exists a particular feeling.

Whatever feeling it is, the feeling is mutual.  


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I hope you didn't get too offended by this. This was actually kind of fun now that I am over the initial shock.

Please review if you read it. Thank you.


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